Yea I sure hope it's a glitch. It smacks of bigotry to me somewhat, but I guess we'll have to give the company the benefit of the doubt. I highly doubt Comcast would admit to any wrongdoing, but they sure better ask fast because news spreads fast over the internet, and the last thing you want are angry customers charging your company with discrimination.

It's been quite awhile since I've taken Spanish, but it sounds like the two offer the same package, just worded differently.

The English version states download speeds up to 12mbps with Powerboost. Key word, up to.

In the Spanish section, under 6mbps, it seems to say something to the effect of "Download speeds now can reach the speed of 12mbps with Powerboost"

Something like that. It seems to be saying the same thing.

@Wolzard: Also wanted to add, if you look where the Spanish 8mbps section is cutoff, I'd likely assume it would say the same thing- up to 16mbps with Powerboost.

I would venture to guess in the Spanish language, it might be a bit too wordy to put the Powerboost thing in the left caption, so it is just explained in the text and only the normal raw speed is given.

Ya, like Wolzard said only the headings are different, the actual texts explains how the actual speed is 6Mbps, but you get 12 Mbps PowerBoost speeds for the first 20MB of a download.

You guys got this one all wrong i am sorry to say. Boost doubles your download speed for the first 10MB of a file, but you don't get this speed all the time.

So, the English language version ($42.95), IS a 6mb connection that BOOSTS to 12. The Spanish version just gives the all the time speed, but you can see in the Spanish text that Boost speeds (12mbs) apply to those accounts as well.

I have had numerous problems with Comcast, however, on this issue, you guys are reading it wrong.

That being said, Comcast is still Craptastic.

It seems like the Spanish version is being more honest. You're probably more likely to get 6Mbps on a regular basis than 12Mbps.

Or maybe it's foreign exchange rates that cause the Spanish version to cost more per megabit.

If it's anything like other projects I've seen, they probably outsource their translations and then don't proofread it because nobody speaks that language.

Probably because their website sucks.

Comcast's customer service practices concern me as much as the next guy, but you guys should do your homework next time before you post this on your front page, no less.

The English-language ad is more misleading, but the product is exactly the same. Comcast's 6 Mbps service includes PowerBoost up to 12 Mbps, and their 8 Mbps service includes PowerBoost up to 16 Mbps. The English version touts the PowerBoost figure, while the Spanish version is more honest with the baseline figure.

Note that neither one of them is guaranteed - I typically get 3-4 Mbps on my Comcast Internet. However, the PowerBoost does work, and when downloading large files I often see 10-12 Mbps.

This doesn't even qualify as a tempest in a teapot. It's more like ripples in a shot glass. Come on, Consumerist, find something real.

@TheObserver: It spreads fast unless you're spanish speaking, apparently.

@Mark Ewell: OH SNAP. Consumerist got told.

By a Facebooker, no less!

I don't think you can give such a company the benefit of the doubt. Glitch or not, I will blame them for this and I will call them racist.

Comcast is in the middle of upgrading their service from 6Mbps to 12Mbps (and 12Mbps to 16Mbps) throughout the country. I got an e-mail from them about a week or so ago about it. Twice the speed, same price! (despite the fact that my bill from them has gone up $2-3 every six months for the past two years).

The likeliest scenario? The Spanish version of their website is just out of date. Why do people try to read evil intentions into everything?

Clearly those are metric Megabytes, for the sake of people not familiar with the American Standard Unit.

I think they just forgot to update the Spanish side of the site when they raised their speeds a few years ago. I have tons of Spanish speaking neighbors, but it's all the same signal coming into the neighborhood - how're they going to divide it out by which site someone signed up on?

@Wolzard: True true. I feel really dirty for "defending" Comcast, but the only thing that's different are those margin-headers, which are actually less misleading in Spanish.

I mean, even if one doesn't know Spanish, for two seconds of your time Babelfish got it right:

It stops crawling in the Web and begins a to burn rims with our service Performance EXTRA (8 Mbps)! And now of PowerBoost®, our fast conección takes control faster, with an extra starting of speed of up to 12 Mbps when you unloading enormous archives like videos and games.

well.. "right," relatively speaking.

This is appropriate:

[img.photobucket.com]

@Corporate_guy: Please folks. Read the comments or otherwise find out what the contents say before you post. I mean, even without translating, the "12 Mbps" in the Spanish post should tip you off that something is off with this article.

Please.

@I Wear Nice Hats:

Ha ha, that is true.

kinda funny

@blue_streak: You live in a Spanish neighbourhood? You should make sure you're not getting the Spanish Bandwidth!

disclaimer: </sarcasm>

Yes, because they have entirely different service codes/packages for Spanish speaking people...
Perhaps the title of this article should be:
"Why doesn't Comcast keep the Spanish version of their website up to date!!"

that's a horrible translation lol

does anyone want me to translate this thing, for real lol

It's an incentive to learn to speak English.

It's just phrasing; it's no big consipracy from Comcast...for once.

Also, Comcast's customer service in Spanish is significantly better, and i mean by leaps and bounds and miles, better than their service in English. I suppose it's an incentive to learn Spanish, eh?

Guys, you were wrong, please either delete this post or post an apology to Comcast.

I can't believe I just Consumerist to apologize to Comcast.

Wow. No wonder a lot of people's Spanish sucks so bad. If anyone were to try to understand or learn anything with BabelFish, that would explain why the Spanish is so horrible.

The Comcast difference in pricing is based on the proven scientific fact that Spanish goes likity split on down loads, so you don't need those higher rates. The rates charged is based on the fact that Spanish bills are not in English, and it costs more to bill in Spanish. I think that this will be fairly close to the real explanation.

Does anyone know how this "boost" actually works? Is it just some form of an IP accelerator that removes the forward error correction? It seems to me that this "boost" is a bunch of BS. Either you get 12 Mbps or you don't.

Babelfish has to be perhaps the best language-based humor on the whole of the internet because it is different every time you use it.

Example: [tashian.com]
It's like Babelfish "telephone" - plug in a phrase and linguistic hilarity ensues!

What's scary is that these translations are alot better since the days I'd use try to use Babelfish for my horrible high school Spanish assignments.

@veg-o-matic: Whoops. Meant that to be @synergy:

Damn, I got excited for a minute. I'm a server on the weekends. Tables full of mexicans always leave $3.00 total no matter how big the check is. Large parties of black people right out of church don't tip at all. They purposely go to restaurants like Bob Evans or Cracker Barrel because there is no tip requirement. That's like taking money right out of my pocket, and honestly I almost got a warm fuzzy thinking some big evil corporation would be taking the money right out of their pocket. DARN IT!!

Considering how massivily wrong Consumerist got this article, maybe they should consider changing the headline so the article skimmer is not mislead. Ya know, that journalistic integrity thing. :)

@WOPDingo: In this case, the advertised speed is 6mbps. When PowerBoost kicks it, the speed is raised to 12mbps for the first 20ish megs. Basically that is how it works.

@WOPDingo:
Yes, it does, and has nothing to do with FEC. The modems recognize individual flows, and when it detects a new flow that meets certain characteristics it asks the headend for permission to use additional channels temporarily (as defined by the headend configuration). If that OK is granted, the headend starts sending data to the modem on the additional channels for a set period of time (usually 90-120 seconds) and then clamps back down and removes the additional channels.

This allows them to throttle it back or turn it off during times of congestion.

Can't you do better than post a Babelfish translation?

This is obviously a marketing issue, and it speaks to the fact that different people handle different parts of the marketing. The bottom line is that Comcast DOES NOT have different modem boot files for Spanish and English speaking customers. So, even if the description of the package is different, Comcast doesn't have separate rate codes or packages created on the back-end to support this discrepancy... Frank should be able to firmly say that if he knows anything about the provisioning system...